phpman > perldoc > Net::LDAP::LDIF(3pm)

NAME
    Net::LDAP::LDIF - LDIF reading and writing

SYNOPSIS
     use Net::LDAP::LDIF;

     $ldif = Net::LDAP::LDIF->new( "file.ldif", "r", onerror => 'undef' );
     while ( not $ldif->eof ( ) ) {
       $entry = $ldif->read_entry ( );
       if ( $ldif->error ( ) ) {
         print "Error msg: ", $ldif->error ( ), "\n";
         print "Error lines:\n", $ldif->error_lines ( ), "\n";
       } else {
         # do stuff
       }
     }
     $ldif->done ( );

DESCRIPTION
    Net::LDAP::LDIF provides a means to convert between Net::LDAP::Entry objects and LDAP entries
    represented in LDIF format files. Reading and writing are supported and may manipulate single
    entries or lists of entries.

    As when reading an entire file into memory with perl normally, take into account the possibility
    of memory use when loading an LDIF file in one go.

SPECIAL FEATURES
    By default, Net::LDAP::LDIF supports reading attribute values from URLs of type "file://".

    When Gisle Aas' LWP module package is installed, Net::LDAP::LDIF uses it to also support reading
    data from the URL types supported by these modules; most prominently "http://", "https://", and
    "ftp://" resources. This extended feature is dynamically detected at runtime.

CONSTRUCTOR
    new ( FILE [[, MODE ], OPTIONS ] )
        Open the file with the given mode.

        "FILE" may be the name of a file or an already open filehandle. If "FILE" begins or ends
        with a "|" then "FILE" will be passed directly to "open".

        "MODE" can be any of the modes allowed for Perl's open() function, potentially extended by
        PerlIO layers as described in perlopentut. Alternatively, it can be one of the mode
        indicators "r", "r+", "w", "w+", "a", "a+" known from C's fopen() function, which get mapped
        to their Perl counterparts. If "MODE" is omitted, it defaults to "r" for reading.

        "OPTIONS" is a list of name/value pairs, recognizing:

        encode => 'none' | 'canonical' | 'base64'
            Some DN values in LDIF cannot be written verbatim and have to be encoded in some way:

            'none'
                The default.

            'canonical'
                See "canonical_dn" in Net::LDAP::Util.

            'base64'
                Use base64.

        onerror => 'die' | 'warn' | 'undef'
            Specify what happens when an error is detected.

            'die'
                "Net::LDAP::LDIF" will croak with an appropriate message.

            'warn'
                "Net::LDAP::LDIF" will warn with an appropriate message.

            'undef'
                "Net::LDAP::LDIF" will warn with an appropriate message if "-w" is in effect. The
                method that was called will return "undef".

                Note this value is the string 'undef', not the "undef" value.

        change => 1
            Write entry changes to the LDIF file instead of the entries itself. I.e. write LDAP
            operations acting on the entries to the file instead of the entries contents.

        lowercase => 1
            Convert attribute names to lowercase when writing.

        sort => 1
            Sort attribute names when writing entries according to the rule: objectclass first then
            all other attributes alphabetically sorted

        version => '1'
            Set the LDIF version to write to the resulting LDIF file.

            According to RFC 2849 currently the only legal value for this option is *1*.

            When this option is set Net::LDAP::LDIF tries to adhere more strictly to the LDIF
            specification in RFC2489 in a few places.

            The default is *undef* meaning no version information is written to the LDIF file.

        wrap => 78
            Number of columns where output line wrapping shall occur.

            Default is 78. Setting it to 40 or lower inhibits wrapping.

        raw => REGEX
            Use REGEX to denote the names of attributes that are to be considered binary when
            reading.

            When this option is given, Net::LDAP converts all values of attributes not matching this
            REGEX into Perl UTF-8 strings so that the regular Perl operators (pattern matching, ...)
            can operate as one expects even on strings with international characters.

            If this option is not given, attribute values are treated as byte strings.

            Example: raw => qr/(?i:^jpegPhoto|;binary)/

METHODS
    read_entry ( )
        Read one entry from the file and return it as a "Net::LDAP::Entry" object.

        In scalar mode, the "Net::LDAP::Entry" object is returned alone, while in list mode a list
        is returned consisting of the "Net::LDAP::Entry" object as first element followed by all
        "Net::LDAP::Control" objects that were part of the LDIF entry. See RFC 2849 for details.

    eof ( )
        Returns *true* when the end of the file is reached.

    write_entry ( ENTRY [, OPTIONS ], ... )
        Write entries to the LDIF file.

        The arguments accepted are a list of entries, optionally interspersed with options belonging
        to the preceding entry.

        For each entry, "OPTIONS" is a list of key-value pairs, recognizing:

        control => CONTROL
        control => [ CONTROL, ... ]
            See "CONTROLS" in Net::LDAP.

    write_version ( )
        If the object's version is defined, this method allows one to explicitly write the version
        before an entry is written.

        If not called explicitly, it gets called automatically when writing the first entry.

    version ( [ VERSION ] )
        If called without arguments it returns the version of the LDIF file or undef if no version
        has been set. If called with an argument it sets the LDIF version to VERSION.

        According to RFC 2849 currently the only legal value for VERSION is *1*.

    handle ( )
        Returns the file handle the "Net::LDAP::LDIF" object reads from or writes to.

    done ( )
        This method signals that the LDIF object is no longer needed. If a file was opened
        automatically when the object was created it will be closed. This method is called
        automatically via DESTROY when the object goes out of scope.

    error ( )
        Returns error message if error was found.

    error_lines ( )
        Returns lines that resulted in error.

    current_entry ( )
        Returns the current "Net::LDAP::Entry" object.

    current_lines ( )
        Returns the lines that generated the current "Net::LDAP::Entry" object.

    next_lines ( )
        Returns the lines that will generate the next "Net::LDAP::Entry" object.

AUTHOR
    Graham Barr <gbarr AT pobox.com>.

    Please report any bugs, or post any suggestions, to the perl-ldap mailing list
    <perl-ldap AT perl.org>.

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright (c) 1997-2004 Graham Barr. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can
    redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.